


Samhain

by Kendrene



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Smut, F/F, Samhain, Vaginal Fingering, Wood Wife! Clarke, grounder lore, spirit!Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:40:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: Lexa can spot traces of the people that came before her to offer their sacrifices - small coins like the one she is carrying in her pocket, bundles of dried flowers, even the hardened stub of a candle.She simply stares at the water for a while, mesmerized by the moon’s reflection. She glimpses her own shadow staring back - an eyeless silhouette darker than the night at her back. For a moment she wonders if this is what the dead walking the world tonight look like, and her heart clenches with a terror she’s never felt and can’t explain.ORIn an attempt to connect with Costia's spirit, Lexa taps into old magic, gets more than what she bargained for.





	Samhain

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps because I am an odd blend of Catholic and pagan in my beliefs, Samhain holds a special place for me. I wanted to explore the concept of the thinning barrier between worlds that some say occurs during this night of the year, and this is the end result. 
> 
> As always your feedback, whether kudos or comments is very welcome.
> 
> Happy reading.
> 
> \- Dren

If Anya could see her now, Lexa thinks as she trudges alone through the darkened forest, she’d call her a hundred shades of fool. 

But Anya is back in TonDC with the rest of her Generals, and hopefully fast asleep.

The woods around her are quiet, the wind stilled, and even the occasional calls of  nocturnal animals sound muted as if the deeper Lexa walks amid the trees, the further she moves from the real world. 

At that thought a shiver runs down her spine, the legends of old her mother used to whisper in her ear before she fell asleep crowding her mind. Her hand falls to the dagger at her waist, not steel, but iron to ward off the evil spirits that may or may not walk the earth on such an hallowed night.

Lexa tells herself she doesn’t believe half the stories her people love to tell around the campfire - but better safe than sorry.

_If you don’t believe,_ a voice starts up inside her mind, _then why are you doing this?_

She ignores it and keeps on walking. 

Lexa hasn’t brought a torch, and has left her weapons behind - save for the iron knife. And while the night is fortunately clear, the moon shining like a silver pendant high above her head, there is a tension in the air that has the flesh of her arms rippling with goosebumps despite her fur-lined cloak. 

Moonlight, which makes it easy to see through the trees now that most have lost their leaves, also turns everything around her into something remote. Her imagination runs wild before she can rein it in, and every stump becomes a crouching enemy, and each soft rustle she hears turns into stalking footsteps. 

Soon enough she’s clutching at the hilt of her knife so hard her knuckles hurt, wondering what Gustus and Indra would make of it if they could see her now. 

The mighty Heda, jumping at shadows.

Yet Lexa knows that alertness is better than complacency, and so she sets herself to carefully scanning every shadow she walks by. 

The spot which the old woman had indicated she should use in her endeavour is further than she initially thought, and by the time she gets there Lexa’s legs are burning, her feet icy from the humidity seeping through the soles of her boots.

Wisps of fog coil around her ankles, the night not cold enough for it to disperse, and thicker tendrils snake around nearby trees, giving the bare branches an almost skeletal quality.

The soft murmur of running water breaks the quiet, the spring coming into view just where the woman had said it would be. 

Over the centuries water has dug a natural basin, and a pond has formed - several steps wide - Lexa can’t quite tell how deep. Small ripples agitate the water’s surface but, close to where Lexa is standing, the pond is an almost perfect mirror of the night around her. 

Lexa can spot traces of the people that came before her to offer their sacrifices - small coins like the one she is carrying in her pocket, bundles of dried flowers, even the hardened stub of a candle. 

She simply stares at the water for a while, mesmerized by the moon’s reflection. She glimpses her own shadow staring back - an eyeless silhouette darker than the night at her back. For a moment she wonders if this is what the dead walking the world tonight look like, and her heart clenches with a terror she’s never felt and can’t explain. 

Lexa has never been afraid of dying, accepting it as something just as natural as breathing - aware of the fact it will probably happen to her sooner than to others, and violently. 

What turns her lungs to frozen burdens unable to function is the thought that catching a glimpse of Costia as she is now, will rob her of the memories she guards within her heart, and she almost abandons her ides.

But then she tells herself she hasn’t come all this way for nothing, and that spirits cannot be so far removed by death from who and what they were in life. 

Lexa steps closer to the water, until all it’d take to plunge her inside the pool would be a misplaced foot, then draws the knife.

It’s not a pretty blade, the handle carved wood wrapped in leather for a better grip, the iron scuffed if well maintained and sharp. Lexa remembers making it during a campaign up north, all of the materials salvaged from old ruins at a time when she needed a weapon in a pinch. 

Its blade may be jagged and brutal, but the knife is functional, and this is what she needs tonight. 

She holds her free hand out, and slices a deep gash across its palm, barely flinching when the metal bites into her flesh.

Black blood wells up instantly and Lexa turns her hand so that it drips in the water. The woman gave her no words to say, so she stays silent, simply letting her blood flow in what she hopes to be an adequate sacrifice.

Lexa waits. And waits.

Nothing happens.

The wind picks up, colder now. Cutting. It chills the exposed parts of her body, and with a disappointed sigh she decides she’s had enough. She pockets the knife hastily, so disgusted by her own naivety that she doesn’t take the time to clean it. 

In her mind’s eye she sees the old woman cackling, pleased at having played the Commander the same way she probably does those credulous fools that pester her for love potions and the like. 

She refuses to linger.

A lone owl cries overhead, a sound so lonely and heartbroken it stops Lexa in her tracks. Clouds rush forth, pushed by the wind that now sweeps the forest, and blot out the light of the moon, pitching the clearing in utter darkness. 

Rustling comes from the shadows, the dry laughter of leaves rubbing together, Lexa reassures herself. 

Yet she pulls the knife out not really knowing _why_ , and unwaveringly holds it between herself and the wall of darkness. 

She isn’t scared - rather she feels electrified - as she often does right before battle breaks out. The forest has gone quiet again, but Lexa has the distinct impression that someone, or perhaps _something_ is approaching.

“Please, put that away.” A whisper comes from everywhere and nowhere, “that is, unless you want to bind me.”

“Bind you?” Lexa can’t refrain from asking. She almost lowers the knife, the voice that of a woman, soft and husky, but then her jaw clenches and she remembers what her mother told her of the creature called Huldra, who uses the disguise of a young woman to lure unwary travellers astray. 

“Fire to blind, iron to bind.” The tone changes, the voice now lecturing and somewhat impatient, “at least you didn’t bring the fire, so perhaps you mean me no harm.”

“I mean you...I don’t…” The rustling is closer now, and Lexa whirls about, almost falling into the pond when a branch snaps behind her back. “The offering wasn’t for _you_ , whatever you are.”

“Tough luck.” The voice retorts. “Since this is _my_ pond.” 

The wind blows again, mournfully whistling between the trees, and it leaves branches creaking in its wake. Light returns, slowly at first, the darkness around Lexa resolving into shapes she recognizes. A scattering of rocks, the glint of water, a desiccated pine almost split neatly in two by a lightning bolt. 

And when her gaze crosses the pond her breath is stolen away. 

Standing across from her is the most beautiful creature… _woman_ that Lexa has ever seen. In the pale moonlight her skin is diaphanous, and there is a lot of it to be seen, Lexa realizes with a harsh swallow, since the apparition is stark naked. 

Hair the color of white gold tumble down the stranger’s shoulders, hints of sunlight trapped within the locks. And her eyes hold the same cold flames that burn into the sky at night, blue and unreadable as they meet hers. 

But the woman’s mouth is bent into a smirk, which at first Lexa reads like mockery, but that at a closer look is an emotion more akin to pity. 

“If not me, then who did you seek to call?” The smirk is gone, but perhaps it was a grimace all along, and the creature starts to walk around the pond - towards Lexa. 

She keeps her firmly in her sights, knife still held between them. and backs away. They fall into step, like some sort of weird dance, circling the pond - and in turn each other.

“I…” The knife’s hilt digs painful grooves in Lexa’s palm, “someone I lost some time ago.”

“You are not the first you know.” The woman’s voice has turned softer, her eyes speaking of a pain she’s witnessed many times before. “Who sent you here? Old Brenna is my guess. To her credit she doesn’t really promise you will get _exactly_ what you seek. Still, I wish she’d stop sending widowers and heartbroken lovers my way.” She gestures and a smooth rock appears on the edge of the pond, big enough for her to perch comfortably on. 

“You know her?” Despite her own misgivings, Lexa takes a step forward, knife slowly lowering.

“I know many things, Lexa kom Trikru.” The woman looks up and the blue of her eyes turns dark will sadness. “For example that the one you seek won’t answer.”

A chill runs up Lexa’s legs at the creature’s words, and all of a sudden she finds herself unable to stand. She wobbles, then sits down - _hard_ \- sharing the same rock the woman is resting on, her mind barely registering the fact that there suddenly seems to be room for two people.

“It’s not because you called wrong or anything.” The creature reaches out, almost touching Lexa’s arm before she withdraws with a small whimper, her eyes fixed on the iron knife. “the spirits of the dead just don’t walk the earth _precisely_ the way the legends say.” Her voice is strained, and when Lexa peers into her face she sees loathing and fear for the weapon she still holds. 

“I will put the knife away.” She finds herself saying, something in the creature’s demeanor touching her deeply, “if you tell me your name first.” 

“Are you offering to bargain, _Heda_?” 

The creature’s voice has turned playful, eyes filling with mischief. 

Lexa hesitates, wanting to say no, but a part of her - the side most attuned to nature and its workings perhaps - suggests she may have more to gain from this encounter than she can possibly imagine. 

“I suppose so.” She mutters with a shrug, and makes a show of deliberately sheathing the knife. The one she’s come to think of as her apparition relaxes visibly, and she reaches out again, this time touching her arm.

“You can call me Klark.” Her murmur is a soft echo of the spring’s bubbling. Lexa nods dumbly, her eyes unable to tear away from the slim fingers resting on her forearm. For a moment she’d though the woman’s hand would pass right through her flesh, but her touch is real - and quite pleasingly _warm_.

“What do you want in return?” She has to swallow again and lick her lips before she can form the question. And with a shiver, she realizes she ought to have asked this first, for now she is at the creature’s mercy.

“Oh, where is the fun in telling you now?” Klark teases, patting her arm to lessen the sting of her words, “besides you have more questions. I can hear it in the beating of your heart.” 

“Really?” 

“No, but it sounds magical if I say it that way, doesn’t it?” Lexa glowers and the creature laughs, the sound filling the clearing with... _light_.

Lexa can’t think of it any other way, her mind suddenly crowded with thoughts of summer and days so long it seems that dusk will never come. The memory brings a certain sadness too however, as she and Costia met the first time on one such day, and summer is the season in which she fell in love with all its consequences.

“I will never see Costia again, will I?” The words come unbidden, and Lexa lowers her gaze, eyes drawn to the blood slowly clotting on her palm. 

“Souls usually don’t linger.” Klark gives dreaded confirmation, “but believe me when I say, you wouldn’t have liked it, had she come.” 

Lexa climbs jerkily to her feet, the same anger that filled her when she found Costia’s severed head in her bed setting her guts on fire. She regrets putting the knife away, the urge to bare it and draw the creature’s blood to numb her own pain almost too strong to resist. 

Klark’s eyes never leave hers, impossible blue filled with a maudlin sort of resignation that reeks of familiarity. The creature mentioned other visitors in passing, and Lexa’s guess is that she’s come to expect the sudden fits of rage that accompany her revelation. 

At the same time, she comes to understand that most of her anger stems from the last pieces of her heart finally shattering. Lexa sits back down, not bothering to fight the tears that cause her eyes to burn, and takes her head between her hands. A small sigh rattles deep within her chest, the parts of her that she held together with bindings made of stubborn hope coming undone. 

There is a certain relief in letting go of the unachievable, but knowing that this is a process required in order to move on, doesn’t make the taste filling her mouth less bitter. 

“Look,” Klark’s hand on her shoulder draws her attention back to the clearing, “there at the edge of the shadows. There stands one of those that linger.” 

Lexa squints, but in the beginning she sees nothing, only catching a glimpse of what the creature is trying to show her by following her pointing finger. 

And then, as the vision resolves into something clear, Lexa wishes that she could unsee. 

The shade is of a pallid grey that has nothing to do with the light of the moon, so ethereal it borders on translucent. It stretches and shrinks by turns, like the flame of a consumed candle, but the sight doesn’t evoke warmth, nor the brightness that accompanies a fire. 

The eyeless figure faces them and Lexa is filled with dread. 

“Is that how we are when we die?” Her voice shakes, close to shattering. 

“Some remain tethered to mortal things,” Klark replies, infinite pity coloring her words, “like a patch of land, or a place. Others are tied to an emotion - hate, revenge, loss. Whatever the reason, these souls don’t ever leave.”

“I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.” Not even the Ice Queen deserves such fate, Lexa decides, and the Gods know she’s wished plenty a misery upon the woman.

“Then you understand why it is best that the one you called to remains out of sight.” Klark taps a finger right above Lexa’s heart, “for she lives on as long as you carry her memory inside.” 

Lexa cannot bear to look at the flickering _thing_ across the clearing a moment longer, and yet she is unable to tear her eyes away.

“It cannot hurt you.” Klark stands and steps between Lexa and the spirit, shooing it away with open hands, “there is nothing for you here. Go!” 

Lexa can’t help but lean to the side and shoot another look towards the tortured soul, just in time to see it thin out in the guise of curling smoke, before a violent gust of wind steals it from view. 

Some of the tension leaves her frame, but her heart stays heavy. 

Klark sits back down - this time making no move to touch her - and Lexa is grateful. She doesn’t think she could bear an attempt at consolation. They stay that way for a time, and Lexa allows her mind to wander. 

Gradually the night around them fills with noise - owls calling to each other, the wind whistling through the trees, smaller animals scattering among the dry leaves. It’s peaceful in a way, with the two of them trapped within their own thoughts and the lonesome moon above.

The night’s chill seeps into Lexa’s bones, numbing her flesh, and she welcomes the sensation because somehow it makes the wrenching pain she feels within her breast more bearable. 

She wants to flee this place that seems to hang in a fine balance between the world she knows and one she’s just gotten a passing glimpse of, and to be again surrounded by the voices of her people. 

But she has made a bargain and - while Klark has not pressed further for her price - Lexa owes her something for her answers.

The creature’s eyes are fixed on the water’s surface, a foot idly kicking the air, and Lexa wonders if Klark can see things within the pond - if its depths act like a looking glass for her, showing her the inner workings of the earth they stand upon. 

The simple thought makes Lexa’s bones ache, what others may interpret as a gift appearing to her like an unimaginable burden even for one as ancient as the creature sitting next to her. 

“The worst part is having the power to watch the paths unfold, without being able to prevent disaster.” Klark speaks up, as if reading her mind. 

A notion Lexa finds she cannot easily discount. 

“Can you see everything?” She finds herself asking, curiosity having the best of her.

“Gods no!” The creature looks at her positively horrified, “neither would I want to.” In that moment she looks both timeless and weary to the bone. “There is only so much suffering I can stand to witness, knowing there is nothing I can do, that no matter how I shout people will not hear my warnings.” 

“But you speak to those that come to you on Samhain.” Lexa whispers softly.

“Every rule has its own exception.” Klark replies, regaining some of her spirit. 

They stare at each other for moments that dilate until time seems to lose all meaning. A fire burns deep within the creature’s blue eyes, inextinguishable as the stars that dot the night’s sky. 

“What is your price?” Lexa asks to keep the silence from becoming deafening. 

Klark does not reply, instead closing the distance between them to place her lips against Lexa’s own. The kiss is tentative, ripe with the solitude of someone who exist beyond the laws of men and spirits alike. 

Lexa understands, and her reply is the tiniest sigh of welcome as her mouth falls open against Klark’s. Her heart has been beating with the same sort of loneliness - her status like a gap between her and her people. 

And the only time she’s tried to cross it caused the death of another.

Klark’s lips grow more insistent against her own, gentle hands cupping her cheeks to pull her closer. Suddenly lightheaded, Lexa reaches out with shaking hands, her body igniting with a fire which hasn’t warmed her bones for many seasons. 

Her fingers close around Klark’s forearms and she holds on for dear life, feeling like a twig swept along a river of desires her duty has kept corralled far too long. Klark’s tongue finds her own - her mouth warm, _human_ , tasting faintly of mint leaves - and the more their kiss deepens, the more undone Lexa is by the sweetness of it all. 

She has worked so tirelessly to make her walls impenetrable, the fact that her souls has been inhabiting a glass house completely escaped her until its too late. 

Her defences crash down around her ears, with the same sound ice makes when breaking at the onset of spring, and under Klark’s touch Lexa’s whole being _thaws_. 

When deft fingers trail down her cheeks, first to her throat and then lower, waging expert war on the clasps and buttons holding her clothes shut, Lexa offers no resistance. Rather, she joins in, their mouths parting only to gulp down air before rejoining. 

She isn’t even certain that the being tenderly bearing her to the ground _needs_ breathing like she does, but her mind blazes too brightly to leave room for technicalities.

Lexa doesn’t stop to wonder at the carpet of moss welcoming her body on the ground, nor at the fact that - even after all of her clothes have been carelessly heaped to the side - she doesn’t feel the biting cold. 

It’s a miracle - or maybe the same kind of magic that allows someone like Klark to be real - but she finds that in the oniric light cast by the moon, she doesn’t need to dissect things with her usual logic. 

Here - _now_ \- Lexa can just believe - transported back to a state of mind in which she doesn’t require proof to know what her eyes show her to be true. Under the onslaught of Klark’s mouth and fingers she simply _is_ , and the stories her mother whispered at her bedside are the norm.

When Klark breaks away, only for her mouth to move lower, nipping and sucking down Lexa’s collarbone before eagerly latching at her breast, she can only card her hands through golden hair. Mewling noises are clawed out of her throat, the sting of Klark’s teeth tugging one of her nipples a mixture of bliss and agony so intertwined Lexa doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins.

She feels her back leave the ground, and one of her hands drops to her side, fingers fisting through the damp moss underneath their bodies, digging into the rich soil beneath. 

Her other hand tightens around a fistful of Klark’s hair, her body demanding that she force her lover’s greedy mouth lower. But the being using pleasure as the tool for her destruction does not submit so easily, taking what Lexa so desperately _needs_ in an entirely different manner. 

Klark’s hand drops between them without warning, almost roughly making way between Lexa’s legs, before it cups her sex and presses upwards. Her folds part and she feels herself drip, a moan of pure want filling the clearing with echoes of her need.

After that the night grows more confused, and when Lexa’s eyes search for the moon as a place to anchor herself to, they only find shards of silver light that flash like lightning across her vision. 

Then the light dims, the forest seemingly swallowed by a fog that shines with an otherworldly brightness of its own, and Lexa’s heart quickens in fear at the thought Klark is dragging her to a world to which she yet doesn’t belong. 

What brings her back to herself is the feeling of Klark’s fingers sinking inside her heat, two and shallowly to start that soon become three as Lexa’s hips rise up in greeting, her walls drawing her lover deeper within her core. 

Klark’s thumb plays a rhythm of its own against her clit, feather-like circles and firmer presses, Lexa’s pleasure growing and ebbing away with each change of pace. 

The fog is gone too now, and the darkness around them is so absolute that she has to open and shut her eyes several times to realize it makes no difference. The only constants are Klark’s fingers thrusting within her, filling her to bursting, and their mouths meeting over and over again. 

When climax comes, Lexa hangs suspended on its brink for what feels like an eternity before release is almost punched out of her chest. She screams - hoarsely, as if she wore down her voice with moans she can’t remember - and reality rushes back so fast her head spins savagely from it. They are back in the clearing, Klark easing her down from her peak with shallower strokes of her fingers against Lexa’s front wall, her free hand carding through her hair in a way that brings tears to eyes unaccustomed to weeping. 

Ever so slowly Lexa’s hips stutter to a halt and, as the last aftershocks ripple through limbs suddenly leade, Klark lays on top of her without speaking and cradles her close.

The rest of the night goes by dreamlike, but perhaps the whole thing is nothing but, for when she wakes at dawn, Lexa is fully dressed and sore from laying on the hard ground. 

She picks herself up as the sky turns first Grey and then pink, tiredly making her way back to the village and her duties. 

As she walks she picks leaves and stray pine needles off her clothes and out of her hair, her mind refocusing as she quickens her pace, thoughts already turning to the list of things waiting to be done. 

But every now and then her mind stutters and refuses to formulate coherent thoughts, and the only thing she can think of when that happens is a blonde woman with soft lips and eyes the color of a summer sky. 

As the year progresses, memories of the night by the pond grow hazy at best, but Klark’s face waits for her whenever she closes her eyes. 

And so when Samhain comes round again, Lexa returns to the clearing, pulled by an invisible force she is almost afraid to call fate. 

This time, no blood sacrifice is required for Klark to manifest, nor summons. 

“I’ve been waiting for you.” She says right before they kiss, and the trees themselves murmur their agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on TUMBLR for more stories and exclusive content](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/)


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